


in which peter parker tries his best

by hamp_burgers (orphan_account)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Miles Morales is a Bean, Ned & MJ appear sometimes, Not Beta Read, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Secret Identity, Secret Identity Fail, The Author Regrets Everything, an interesting assortment of side characters, bc i just love all of them a lot, but like. a lot of side characters, hes litol and i love him, im not tagging them bc i dont wanna confuse anyone, may and mj and ned and steve and more later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:27:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24579025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/hamp_burgers
Summary: “Freshmen,” says Ned dreadfully, as one would tell of a man’s death or shortage of punch at a party.MJ snorts. “You make it sound like they’re some exotic species or something.”“Fresh meat,” says Peter, in a barely plausible ‘tough guy’ voice.The lanky kid comes bounding past, and before Peter has time to blink he slips right into their table.(There's a new Spider-Man in town, and Peter hasn't even begun to suspect his accidentally adopted friend Miles.)
Relationships: Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Miles Morales & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 29
Kudos: 182





	1. peter meets his new son

Peter Parker _l_ _oves_ Dairy Queen.

It is, probably, the best fast food place to ever be created in the state of New York. It’s like McDonald’s, if McDonald’s sold actually good burgers and the ice cream machine worked consistently.

It’s a Friday, school is out, and Peter is absolutely ready to eat an entire Blizzard in three minutes while Ned and MJ watch on in horror. The Dairy Queen is six blocks away, it’s pouring, and they’re all sick and tired of existence, but this won’t keep them from their one mission: Obtain ice cream.

“I cannot believe Mr. Williams did us dirty like that,” Ned complains as they trudge down the street. “That test was brutal.”

MJ rolls her eyes, somewhat affectionately. “And it was like 25% of our grade. You better have done well.”

“Or what?” Ned asks.

“Or I’ll kick your butt.”

“Children, children,” Peter says soothingly. “Calm thyselves. This is senior year, Ned. Just saying.”

“I’m not ready to be an adult,” Ned whines. Peter can quite literally hear the sad emoticon in Ned’s voice.

Looking for some light in this cruel world, Peter points out, “Hey, we’re almost to the DQ.”

This makes Ned brighten up considerably.

Inside, the air is considerably warmer and much drier than outside. They wipe their shoes off on the mat outside and put their backpacks down in a booth, shaking off their wet raincoats. 

While Ned and MJ sit down, Peter orders for them. 

(He’s been the one who orders their food for quite some time. MJ used to do it, but after the fourth time she’d snapped at a Karen (TM) Peter and Ned had vetoed her position in power, and Peter had been elected in her place.)

Ned cradles his Blizzard like it’s his long lost child. MJ eats her sundae at a respectable pace, while Peter descends upon his own milkshake as a starving man falls upon an oasis after days in the desert. He’s been waiting his whole life for this.

  
Peter contemplates making a loud, sensual moaning noise with every bite, but MJ would surely sue him for public harassment (targeted at everyone in the general vicinity) and he would be sent to jail for food crimes. That would be an absolute disaster. As far as Peter’s aware, prisons don’t have Dairy Queen. 

“I can’t believe the semester is over,” says Ned.

“I can’t believe time exists anymore.” Peter takes a bite of ice cream, narrowly avoiding brain freeze and the subsequent bullying he would get from Ned and MJ. The semester is finally over and his brain feels like it’s been squished every way possibly. The days have slurred together. This week has felt like five hours and two months simultaneously.

MJ gives him a mildly concerned look, which he deserves. The end of the year is generally nuts for him — school and Spider-Man is hard enough to juggle, but its even harder along with finals, and studying for finals, and taking finals, and worrying about his grades on the finals-  
Peter hates finals.

“You guys going on vacation during break?” MJ asks after a brief staring contest with Peter.

“May’s working on and off for most of the summer,” Peter replies. “We might go to the park or something.”

Ned grins. “Unrestrained summer fun.”

“Shut up,” Peter says jokingly.

A few kids come running through the door, sopping wet. Peter watches as one of them — a tall, skinny boy with dark skin and fluffy hair — almost slips on the floor with his wet sneakers. Behind him, a shorter girl with choppy blonde hair sighs in exasperation.

(He thinks to himself that she looks a lot like MJ. As in, she has the face of someone who would beat up a sexist without hesitation. Which, good for her.)

Peter recognizes them both from Midtown High. Though he’s never spoken to them before, he’d guess they’re freshmen. The three sitting at the table share a look.

“Freshmen,” says Ned dreadfully, as one would tell of a man’s death or a shortage of punch at a party.

MJ snorts. “You make it sound like they’re some exotic species or something.”

“Fresh meat,” says Peter, in a barely plausible ‘tough guy’ voice.

Ned and MJ both laugh at that. The two younger kids order sundaes and Peter, aware of the Midtown High badge on his backpack, avoids eye contact. 

The lanky kid comes bounding past, and before Peter has time to blink the kid slips right into their table.

Peter grabs him before he hits his head, but the kid falls to his butt on the floor. The girl, who was walking beside him, watches on, jaded. Peter assumes she has to deal with stuff like this a lot.

“You ok?” Peter asks.

The boy scrambles to his feet. “I’m fine.”

Behind him, the girl sighs and checks her phone. “Miles, we gotta go, your uncle’s waiting on us.”

Miles grins sheepishly. “Well, uh, bye I guess. See you around.”

The three at the table watch him go before Ned turns to Peter. “You’re his dad now.”

“What?” Peter asks in bewilderment.

Ned puts his hands on Peter’s shoulders. “You. Are. His. Father.”

MJ facepalms.

* * *

The summer passes quickly — when Peter isn’t hanging out with May, Tony, or his friends (which now includes Miles and Gwen, somehow), he’s swinging around New York as Spider-Man. 

Usually he’d be fighting crime or eating churros, but today he’s just swinging around for the fun of it. Ned and MJ are in a voice call with him, mostly just fooling around instead of doing their over-the-summer schoolwork together.

Currently, they’re saying things that even Peter can’t comprehend.

“I’m just saying, kangaroos could theoretically lay eggs,” Ned says.

There’s a long moment of silence before MJ whispers, barely loud enough that they can hear, “Shut up.”

Peter laughs and swings across the street in one swoop, sticks to the side of an apartment building and crawls up it quickly. 

“You just don’t wanna face the truth,” Ned says snootily.

The air outside is humid and hot — it’s 80-something degrees out — but the suit keeps Peter cool. Thank the Lord for temperature control.

“Ned- What does that even mean?” MJ asks.

Ned, who’s having a full-on giggle fit at this point, replies, “K-Kangaroos- They can lay eggs.”

“I’m losing faith in you guys,” Peter informs them as he swings from one building to the next.

“You had faith in us at any point of ur friendship?” MJ asks dryly. “I’m disappointed, Peter.”

He snorts. “Me too.”

“It’s almost 3:00, I gotta go,” MJ says. She disconnects after they say bye, and Peter (sadly) lets Ned know he has to go too.

“I’m getting ice cream with Miles.”

“Oh, yeah, your son,” Ned says gleefully. Peter doesn’t even try to dissuade him at this point.

* * *

The apartment is sweltering hot (no one was at home, and the AC is out of commission anyway) but Peter turns on ever fan in the house and soon it’s cool enough that he can take his suit off without having to worry about his skin immediately melting off.

Once Peter’s changed out of the suit and into some regular clothes (basketball shorts and an old jersey of Ben’s) he clambers down the metal stairs and out into the streets of New York. It’s cooler down here under the shade of the many trees planted along the sidewalk, and his bare skin can actually feel the breeze, so it’s quite refreshing.

He jogs over to the bus station where he’s supposed to meet Miles — the kid is waiting for him there, looking as peppy and gangly as ever.

“Hey Peter!” He says cheerfully, in his normal, just slightly awkward way.

(Seriously, Peter thought he was awkward until he met Miles. The kid could embarrass himself over someone else’ accidents, he swears.)

“So what’s up?” Peter asks as they make their way to the ice cream shop a few blocks away.

“Well I s- I went over to my uncle’s house and he taught me some more graffiti stuff,” Miles says, “and Gwen and I got to go to Coney Island with her dad!”

* * *

The way home from school — the semester’s been going for a few weeks — Peter tries as best he can to casually invite Miles over to Stark Tower, where he’s half interning, half adopted by Tony.

Miles takes a moment to process what Peter said, then begins to do what Peter can only describe as freaking out. Not in a bad way, but in a _he’s going to get a concussion if he keeps bouncing around like this kind of way._ "Really? Stark Tower? With Tony Stark? Tony Stark the billionaire and famous Iron Man? Really?” Miles chatters away, in awe.

“Yeah,” Peter says. “Yeah, mhm, yeah, yep.”

“Wow that’s so awesome- I mean, like, Tony Stark? Iron Man?” Miles continues as they walk down the sidewalk. “I can’t believe you intern for him, wow, that’s so cool! Imagine getting to work with- with _the_ Tony Stark.”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s whatever.”

Miles clears his throat, suddenly aware of how he’s been acting. “I mean, it’s- no big deal I guess.” Then, after another moment, “But what if I mess up? What if he doesn’t like me? What if I em-”

“You’ll be fine,” Peter says reassuringly, bumping his shoulder into Miles’.

He has no confidence that Miles won’t embarrass him, but he’s not going to tell that to the kid. That’d just be mean.

(Oh no, he’s a dad now. Miles is his son. Wow. Ok. Peter freaks out about this internally for a good 20 seconds before realizing it’s fine and it doesn’t really matter.)

(Is this what Tony feels like?)

Peter checks his phone and pockets it. “Next week, Monday, after school? Happy’ll pick us up.”

Miles, eyes shining, says, “Yeah, that works!”

* * *

“I can see why you’re so stressed all the time,” Peter says to Tony.

“Hmm?” Tony hums absent-mindedly from under the sports car he’s repairing.

“The pain… of having a child,” Peter says dramatically. He leans against the counter behind him and puts his hand on his forehead in a classic fainting position.

Tony scoots out from under the car and raises an eyebrow. “…Did you impregnate someone or something?”

“Oh, God no.”

“Let your- your little spider eggs go or something like that?”

“Mr. Stark- Thats- Why?” Peter makes a fake retching sound in the back of his throat.

“Unless you stole a child,” Tony says, “I don’t see how you got one, then.”

Peter snorts at that. “I- kinda accidentally adopted one. And, uh, invited him over to the tower. Next week… Sorry?”

Tony laughs at him.

“Don’t do this to me- give me some sympathy or something.”

“Peter, this is _the most_ in-character thing I’ve ever seen you do.”

Peter scowls at him, but it’s hard to stop from smiling. “Well, he’s coming over Monday with me.”

Tony sighs, now. “I guess he can come over.”

“Thanks, you’re the best Mr. Stark.”

“I thought we progressed past the need for you to call me Mr. Stark.”

“Never.”


	2. peter finds a funky cd

Peter swings through Queens, following the sound of hurried, pounding footsteps. He’s been following the (presumed) criminals for quite a few blocks, but has yet to figure out what they’re running after or what they look like clearly.

With his extra-sensitive hearing, he listens as one of them, the leader it seems, whispers to the others. “This way.” His voice is muffled and deep. The three of them duck into a back alley and Peter webs across the street, landing on the roof of a three-story apartment building that’s on one wall of the alleyway.

The three figures move quietly to the back of the alley, ducking to check around dumpsters and trash bags until one of them, while rummaging around between a few old pieces of furniture, murmurs, “Here it is.” Peter thinks, to himself, that the man sounds kind of like a frog.

Peter leans over the ledge more to see what the man has. He’s holding a dirty black backpack, which seems virtually empty.

“We’ve gotta go,” the third person, a woman with a rough voice, says. “She’ll be waiting on us."

While one man peeks his head out to check for any passing strangers, Peter jumps down and crawls along the wall around to the back of the alley. The leader doesn’t have time to cry out before Peter lunges at him and webs the man up, sticking him to the ground.

The man yells something unintelligible when he hits his head on the ground, and the other two turn in surprise. The woman pulls out a knife and ducks towards him, narrowly avoiding his webs. She tries to stab him in the side. Peter dodges her and, feeling his spidey sense go off, runs up onto the wall right before two bullets go flying past where he was just standing.

Peter crawls along the wall quickly and turns to see the first man, the one who had been busy checking for strangers on the street, holding a gun pointed at him. The woman throws her knife at Peter and he avoids it, jumping to the ground. The man with the gun takes aim again and Peter jumps away, dancing around the two quickly. The woman stumbles as she tries to follow Peter’s movement and falls to the ground. Peter webs her hand to the ground. 

As Peter scurries up to the fire escape, the last man aims his gun and shoots. It grazes Peter’s shoulder, just slightly, and he hisses in pain. “Well that was rude,” he says.

Peter flips onto the ground. The man takes a step back as he advances, and before the man has time to blink Peter runs at him and kicks him square in the stomach, sending him flying into the wall. Behind Peter, the woman stands back up, her hand unstuck from the webs. She has the leader’s gun in her hand, but before she has time to shoot a fourth figure appears from the dark.

The dark figure wears a black, tight suit, sot of like Peter’s, and he stands lanky and tall. He jumps down from somewhere above — probably the fire escape Peter had perched on moments before — and he tackles the woman. Her yell of surprise is cut off as the figure brings her down and hits her head on the ground. She goes still.

“Who-” Peter begins to ask. The figure, seemingly startled by his presences, shoots up and backs away quickly. Peter watches, holding his bleeding shoulder, as the stranger turns and grabs onto the wall. At least, Peter assumes he does, as then the figure crawls up it easily.

“Well, that was… unexpected.” Peter leans down to inspect the woman, making sure she’s still breathing, before he turns towards the leader, who’s still webbed to the wall. He has a cut on his forehead, and he’s passed out from hitting his head on the brick behind him. Peter picks up the backpack the man was holding.

The police will be here soon — as far as he’s aware, Karen didn’t call them, however someone nearby must have heard the gunshots and called the cops to investigate. He can hear sirens in the distance, even as Karen pulls up a map of the are, with there cars coming towards their location.

Peter inspects the backpack for a moment. It’s dark green, scuffled up and dirty, in a way that makes him think it’s still relatively new. A soft golden light is emanating from the biggest pocket. Peter resists the urge to open it, and instead jumps up onto the wall as the sirens get closer. He leaves as the police arrive, taking a moment to check that they find the three unconscious criminals.

He decides to take the backpack to Tony the next chance he gets. Glowing bags in alleyways are never good signs.

* * *

At Stark Tower, Peter slides through one of the open windows and into Tony’s workshop. It’s almost 2 AM, but the man is still up, bent over a screen built into one of the counters.

“Uh, hi,” Peter says as he approaches Tony.

Tony jumps, clearly caught up in his work, and turns. “Oh, Peter, hi.”

Peter sets the bag down on the desk beside Tony. “Why are you still up?”

“Why are you?” Tony asks in retaliation.

Peter huffs and rubs his shoulder, which is still sore, but the cut has already closed up. Tony raises his eyebrows at Peter. “Get hurt?

“Yep,” Peter replies. “It’s not that bad, don’t worry.”

“If you’re sure,” Tony says. Peter watches as he shoots a worried glance to the injury. After a moment, “So, what happened?”

Peter pushes the backpack towards Tony. “There were a few guys picking this up from an alley.”

Tony picks the backpack up and turns it around, looking at it as he listens to Peter. “Oh, and this guy, about my size I think, came outta nowhere and saved me. One of them as about to shoot me. He didn’t tell me his name or- or anything I guess. Just saved me and disappeared.”

Tony hums. “Did they- the criminals, I mean, say anything about the glowing?”

“Nope, just said they needed it for their boss or something.”

“Ah,” Tony says. “I’ll check it out.”

Peter gets a cup of hot chocolate (Tony has a Kirog in his lab and Peter loves exploiting that every chance he gets.) and watches as Tony opens the bag and pulls something out — a disk, about 4 or 5 inches wide. It looks to be made of solid gold, and it glows, stronger now that it’s out of the bag. Even under the bright florescent lights of the lab, the glow is bright.

After another moment of inspecting it, Tony shoos Peter. “You should get home,” he says. “May will be worrying.”

“Yeah.” Peter finishes his hot chocolate quickly, pulls his mask back on and, with one last glance towards Tony, who’s running diagnostics on the strange object, Peter jumps out of the window and catches himself on a web.

At May’s apartment, Peter slips through the window of his bedroom and tip-toes quietly through the house. On May’s bedroom door, a sticky note reads, “Called to the hospital, they have a busy night. Get some sleep.”

Peter, changed into his civilian clothes, takes it and pockets it. A tradition he and May have kept for as long as Peter can remember.

Peter lays in his bed awhile later, staring out the window at the distant lights of downtown. He’s bone tired, but he can’t get the image of the stranger who saved him out of his head. The person was strong — maybe as strong as Peter, and he was fast. Peter remembers how he just, sort of, appeared on the fire escape, and how he was able to escape the scene just as quietly. And they way he pulled himself up that wall…

Peter is sort of scared to admit it, but it was creepily like how he himself moves.

* * *

The next morning, May wakes Peter up by throwing a towel onto his face. He balls it up and throws it back at her, blearily blinking his eyes and stretching. “I got Chinese takeout,” May calls as she walks back down the hall.

That really inspires Peter to get out of bed.

“Stay out late last night?” May asks over their food. It’s almost 1 PM.

“Only a little bit later than usual,” Peter replies around a mouthful of chicken. “Just had to catch some criminals that were particularly tricky.”

May nods and silently put more noodles on Peter’s plate. “Mr. Rogers said he’s gonna call you sometime. Superhero business, he said he couldn’t tell me the details.”

“Did he say when?” Peter asks, pretty much inhaling his noodles.

“Nah, just soon.”

Peter sets his fork down on his empty plate. “That works."

* * *

Steve calls Peter about a week later.

Since his encounter with the stranger in the alley, he hasn’t seen hide nor hair of the man, though he and Tony had kept a lookout.

“Hi, Mr. Rogers,” Peter says cheerfully as he steps into Steve’s apartment, for once coming in through the front door and not the fire escape.

Steve sighs. “You can call me Steve.”

“I know.”

One of the many joys of life is calling adults who he’s close to by their surname. It drives them absolutely insane, for no particular reason that Peter can begin to understand.

Steve grins at him, bemused, and steps aside to let him into the living room. It’s cluttered with ammunition, spare gun parts, and an interesting of food wrappers. “Me and Bucky aren’t the best at cleaning,” Steve apologizes. “Sorry.”

Peter reassures him it’s ok as Steve sets about making some coffee. “Does Mrs. Parker even let you drink coffee?” Steve asks.

Peter snorts. “Yeah, I’m not 12 or something.”

Steve turns to survey him, feigning surprise. “Why, I couldn’t tell,” he says jokingly.

Peter sticks his tongue out at him. “So, what do you need?” He asks as Steve pulls out two mugs and pours the coffee grounds into his old, beat up coffee maker.

“There’s a new guy in town. You probably haven’t seen him, he’s been sticking around Brooklyn as far as we can tell.”

“Oh?” Peter asks, getting an inkling of where this is going.

“He wears a suit, looks kinda like yours. Black and red? I think.”

Peter leans over the counter, resting his elbows on the countertop and putting his chin on his fist. “And he’s only in Brooklyn?”

“We think. And he’s only around at night. Hit suit looks kinda like he copied yours — tight spandex, with a kinda- spider-thing spray painted on the front. Messy job, but it’s better than the first one you had.”

Peter scowls at him as Steve finishes the coffee. “I’m being bullied.”

Steve pours out the coffee into two mugs and Peter accepts one graciously.

“Listen, I’ll keep you updated if we find anything else about him — name, age, info, anything like that. I’m going to try and get in touch with him, just to see how he’s doing. Everyone’s pretty much accepted his presence already, but I wanna make sure he’s got good support. He doesn’t seem… the friendliest.”

On the walk home, Peter stews over Steve’s news. Another Spider-Man to work in New York would be awesome — Peter works pretty well with a team, which he’s learned from many, many missions with other vigilantes and superheroes, and a few, marginally better, school projects with his classmates. And he’s glad boroughs other than Queens can get some stable vigilante protection.

Peter checks his phone as he walks. No new notifications, other than a message from Tony about heading into the lab tomorrow to check something out. Peter assumes it has to do with the glowing disk Tony had been running tests on for the past week or so.

May’s out of the house for work again, but Peter finds another note on the fridge telling him to order takeout since she can’t be home to cook.

Peter follows his primal instincts and walks a few blocks to get a whole bucket of KFC wings. This is truly the life of luxury.

* * *

Steve calls him again a few days later. Peter still hasn’t met the stranger again, but he’s heard talk of civilians seeing him around Brooklyn. Peter’s even swung over in that are a few times, but to no avail.

“Hey,” Steve greets Peter.

“Hi, Mr. Rogers.”

“What have I-“

“Yeah, yeah, I can call you Steve, I know.”

Steve makes a noise that sounds kind of like frowning, but audibly. “Well, I got the guy’s phone number. He’s pretty cool, kinda reminds me of you, actually.”

“Awesome and handsome?"

“Yeah, and completely filled with social anxiety.”

Peter snorts. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir, I’m perfectly socially capable.”

“I arranged a meeting for y’all,” Steve continues, ignoring Peter’s desperate attempts at being normal. “Tomorrow, 5 PM on the roof of the McDonald’s over on Harvey Street.”

Peter’s silent for a moment. “The McDonald’s?”

“Uh, yeah, don’t ask me. I didn’t come up with it,” Steve says sheepishly.

“Okay, I’ll be there,” Peter replies after a long moment of silence, which he assumes should be filled with emotion.

Peter just hopes this guy isn’t as weird as Deadpool.

* * *

At Stark Tower, Tony Stark stares at the screen before him.

Graphs are spread across a large display. And in the middle is a test result showing that Peter Parker's DNA matches up with small portions of the strange, glowing disk sitting on the counter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no excuse as to why this took over a month, i wrote all of it in like three hours at most sdjfsjghf and ty all sm for 100 kudos!! and 500 hits!! i didnt expect people would actually read this, as its p much my first actual fic, but im glad yall like it
> 
> anyway lmk what yall think in the comments :D

**Author's Note:**

> hey its your local trash rat back with another fic :D im not super happy with the pacing of this chapter but trying to fix it didnt help a lot. anyway i hope yall love miles as much as i do
> 
> lmk what yall think in the comments!!


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